Mr Edwards' background includes 19 years in the Royal Air Force and 16 years as a Senior Manager in various national health services including the Scottish NHS in Glasgow , and the Falkland Islands Department of Health and Social Services.

The post he now occupies differs significantly from that of his predecessor. He was keen to explain those differences and how this will affect the future development of services on the Isle of Man.

Prior to his presentation he took umbrage with what the Chairman had said in respect of a hidden agenda by the DHSS to diminish the role of the Manx Diabetes Centre and revert to Care in the Community, and assured those present, and categorically denied that the DHSS had any hidden agenda in this respect. The Chairman thanked him and accepted his assurances.

Mr Edwards said that he had invited himself to come and talk, as this was part of a process of talking to Groups with a specific interest in health. This consultation process had been going on for some little time.

Some of you, he pointed out, may have known his predecessor John Wilson who had retired a year ago.

On his retirement the opportunity was taken to look again at his job, and some changes were introduced.

These he explained were best summed up by the three parts of his title, which was a wonderful civil service job title, being Director of Health, Strategy and Performance.

These three words he said encompassed his responsibility.

First of all Health, because he retained overall responsibility for the Health Service.

Secondly Strategy, which is management speech for where the DHSS was going, what are they trying to do, and what they are trying to achieve.

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The first bit, the Health bit, is something that everyone is familiar with he said, it involves responsibility for Noble's Hospital, the primary care of things, the GP's, the Dentists, Pharmacies, Optometrists and the Community Health Services. It did not include responsibility for Mental Health, which rested with Social Services.

Mr Edwards pointed out that the significant difference from John Wilson's role and that of his, was an essential review of overall responsibility for Health Services being devolved to his team managers Paul Shields for the hospital and Tony Jones for primary care.

This enabled him to be released for the rest, the Strategy and Performance side of things.

Strategy, as he had already explained was management speech for where they were going, what they were doing and what their priorities were, and the Performance side was to do with standards

Starting off with looking at the Strategy side, he gave those present a little background saying that the DHSS have an unusual situation on the Isle of Man, for a population of 80,000 people more or less depending on ones viewpoint, we had facilities and a range of services, that would not be found in an equivalent population anywhere else in the world and certainly not in Great Britain.

If we were to take our population and transfer it across to the UK, very similar to where he had been living in, before he came here, the Island wouldn't even have a quarter of the size of Noble's and its facilities.

We would however have roughly the same number of GP's Dentists, Pharmacists and Opticians, because the provisions here are almost exactly the same as there is across, or indeed slightly better.

Mr Edwards emphasised that they would certainly not be providing the wide range of services, and in depth services that we provide here and at Noble's.